Pippy: Oscars and Grammys

Justin Timberlake and his wife have been in Paris the last few days as he promotes his new album. Here he is arriving at a radio station and then at Roissy airport. At the 30 hour mark of our marathon post-Oscars work day and night, Duana and I threw down over my suggestion that Justin Timberlake should host the Oscars, following our joint rage at Seth MacFarlane’s misogyny.

F-ck OFF, is what she said to me.

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He’d be a great host. He is a great entertainer. Yes, he’d make it all about himself. But then we can sh-t on him afterwards and that would be FUN. And it’s pretty much a promise by the Academy that that’s the only time he’ll be invited -- as a presenter and/or a song and dance man. Come ON!

The Grammys on the other hand...

Well, The 20/20 Experience will be released on March 18th and everyone expects that Grammy will include him next year. Album of the Year?

You know who else is releasing an album soon?

Oh, just some dude called David Bowie.

Bowie’s The New Day comes out a week earlier. I’ve read four reviews so far -- The Independent, The Guardian, the BBC, and The Telegraph, and all of them are borderline rapturous. UK outlets, of course, and they may be inclined to be much kinder since not too long ago, we thought the legend might be lost to us forever, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a wonderful effort, and the recording academy LOVES veterans.

I wrote about the first video from The New Day last month, for Where Are We Now -- click here for a refresher. The song is...SO beautiful. And hits you where music is supposed to hit you. When he sings, so plaintively, asking the question Where Are We Now, you know it must have been a sh-tkicker to come back from where he’s been. It’s the honesty that’s the most affecting. To go on, we must accept the lie -- that where we’ve been is worth it. Bowie won’t lie to you. He’s not going to tell you that it was worth it. Was it worth it? There’s no right answer to that. But God, hopefully, when it gets scary, when the disease comes back after only giving you a year off, hopefully, at least, you have someone to be scared with. That still doesn’t make it worth it, but at least you don’t have to be alone.

Another video from Bowie’s new album was released this week. Just in time for the Oscars, the song is called The Stars (Are Out Tonight) and it features...Tilda Swinton, perhaps the most perfect artistic collaboration we’ve seen in years. Also...directed by Canadian Floria Sigismondi! Tilda in that visor, that you see on Asian women all the time, KILLS me. Listen to this while picturing Pips jumping on Mrs T’s head on the cover of PEOPLE Magazine. He wouldn’t get it.